Claudia Rankine on Confronting Whiteness Head-On Through Language

Claudia Rankine cuts to the chase. She does not mince her words. The poet, essayist, playwright, and educator—whose recent body of work analyzes white supremacy in America—looks closely at its subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations, personal and systemic. Her forthright attention to the unspoken runs across three plays and six collections of poetry, in which Rankine works through subjects of tragedy and despair, maternity and motherhood, selfhood and individualism, and everyday instances of racial discrimination in ways that shrewdly illuminate the inner workings of American society. Never prescriptive, she leaves room for audiences to consider their own prejudices and privileges, and to understand more intimately where they come from and the systems in which they participate and belong. 

Often, Rankine seems more interested in questions than answers, and in unpacking the thought processes implied by a given response. These inquiries are at the center of her 2019 New York Times Magazine essay “I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked,” which details her experiences of talking with white men about race in airports and on airplanes. Some of these dialogues arise in Rankine’s play Help, too, which recently finished a monthlong run at The Shed in New York City. Her inquisitiveness also lies at the center of The Racial Imaginary Institute, an organization she co-founded in 2016 that prompts artists and institutions to consider their racialized positioning. For Rankine, too much is at stake to not have these kinds of conversations.

On this episode, Rankine talks with Spencer about why Americans tend to avoid talking about whiteness and white supremacy, racism in professional tennis, and what liminal spaces can reveal about white privilege. 

Special thanks to our Season 5 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Full transcript
• claudiarankine.com
• [05:48] “Claudia Rankine on How Beyoncé Became an Icon”
• [05:48] The White Card
• [18:30] The Racial Imaginary Institute
• [18:30] The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind
• [27:58] “I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked.”
• [34:01] Citizen: An American Lyric
• [36:41] “The Meaning of Serena Williams”
• [53:22] Help
• [58:11] “Weather”
• [01:10:09] Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
• [01:10:09] Just Us: An American Conversation
• [01:13:51] Plot
• [01:13:51] The End of the Alphabet